Girls Against the World
by IcyKali
Summary: Sequel to "A Decade Later". The girls are feeling the residual effects of Blossom's involvement with the government. Could superhero teen angst and the return of long-unseen supervillains finally break the girls? Features many different characters.
1. The Big Break-Out

The City of Townsville at midnight, and everybody's asleep in their beds. Even the Powerpuff Girls were finished with their nightly patrol; they were all tuckered out from their long day of construction. Things still hadn't gone back to normal after HIM's attempted takeover. The Utonium household was happy to have Blossom visiting her hometown (her Ice Breath sure was helpful for cleaning blood off of the buildings).

What a peaceful night—but not in the government's testing facility at Monsanto Bay (the government can neither confirm nor deny a connection to Monsanto Foods), also known as the Other Side of Cuba. There, all hell was breaking loose. The alarm systems screamed and a message resounded through the halls. "There has been an event like a security breach. All guards relocate to stations outside the testing areas."

The fluorescent lights that normally kept the walls painfully white suddenly went out, leaving the racing guards in darkness. It only stayed dark for a few seconds, when a sourceless, unearthly red glow illuminated everything. The personnel assumed this was emergency power, and they ran down the corridors as they normally would, but no matter how far they traveled, they only ran in circles.

The sensors, before being swiftly cut off, read that two superbeings and one human were running down Sector F2, towards the third superhuman experiments holding area. They were Mojo Jojo, HIM, and Princess Morbucks, storming the Superhuman Containment Organization's facility to free long-imprisoned supervillains.

"Why'd you just make them get lost? Wouldn't you usually make their worst nightmares come true or something?" Princess Morbucks whined.

"Oh, well, you know," said HIM, who despite wearing heels, was somehow able to keep up with his partners-in-crime, "those damned Powerpuff Girls left me in a weakened state! But don't fret, I'll tear them apart soon enough!"

The three of them paused at a square, dull grey door with a palm scanner next to it. Princess pulled out a plasma blaster, and blew the panel off the scanner.

"I will now hack into the security system of this facility," said Mojo. "The security system will be cracked by me, Mojo Jojo. I have the specialized knowledge of electronics that this job requires, and as such I am able to—"

"Mojo, be a dear and shut up, or die!" yelled HIM.

"Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed today..." Mojo glared at him, and then began fiddling with the wires. After a minute or two, the door slid open and they walked inside. Princess stayed by the entrance, prepared to shoot down any stray guards.

Mojo and HIM continued through the holding area. The normal grey of the walls was occasionally by brightly-colored signs with dire warnings printed on them, and also by bluish windows into cells holding disfigured mistakes of nature.

"You are certain they are located here?" asked Mojo.

HIM grinned wider than really should be possible. "Of course, darling. I've always held a special connection to all the evildoers in Townsville."

Mojo scowled. "Special connection? Is that why you keep referring to me with terms of endearment?"

"Oh no, I just like you." Something caught HIM's eye. "Look at this! Experiment 45. Looks familiar, doesn't she?"

Mojo hesitantly peered into the cell. Inside, he saw a tall, pointy-eared, pale-skinned woman laying on her side. She was so thin her ribs were showing, and she had deep red bruises on her legs. Mojo suspected that her abdomen had them as well, but she had on a short white robe, so he couldn't tell.

"Who is that? Her appearance does not match that of any supervillain I am aware of."

"I'll give you a hint. Imagine her with writhing snakes for hair." HIM giggled, and Mojo blanched. The woman was indeed Sedusa, who looked quite pathetic with all her sexy clothes and hair stripped away.

Mojo moved to get out his own blaster ray and start on releasing her, but HIM stopped him. "Don't worry about that yet. Lets complete our window shopping first. Ooh, look at this one! He looks positively demonic." HIM smiled at another unfortunate specimen, a twenty-something man with bright blue skin that was oily and diseased. He had his back against the cell wall. He had goat-like horns growing out of his head, and had on the same kind of white robe Sedusa was wearing.

"It seems he lost his sunglasses on the ride," said HIM. "Such a pity. He doesn't look so special without them, does he? Oh, before you ask, that's Ace in there." HIM sighed and kept walking.

"Why would his skin, which was originally green, now be blue, which is not its original color?" asked Mojo.

"His slimy little street gang was always on the verge of mutating further. I suppose the government's experiments just pushed the process along."

The two of them walked down the hall, passing several other broken ex-villains. The other members Gangreen Gang had fared worse than their leader; Snake now had obvious bright green scales, and twisted and curled like his animal namesake, Big Billy had giant, rocky protrusions sticking of his limbs, Lil' Arturo's eyes bugged out like a fly's, and Grubber... barely looked human. His skin bulged in various places, his body sagging, tumor-covered. He looked like he was suffering from advanced Proteus Syndrome, or worse.

The last villain in the containment area was, refreshingly, the least changed. Fuzzy Lumpkins looked much the same, although he looked slightly less muscular, and patches of his fur were missing. He had similar welts to Sedusa, but less severe.

At the end of the hall, six cells were conspicuously empty. There were labels on them, but the specimens were absent.

Mojo, angry, turned to HIM. "You said they would all be here, but they are missing! You have spoken a falsehood, and although this would not normally be an unexpected occurrence, to promise that—"

HIM frowned and looked away sheepishly. "The Amoeba boys hardly count as villains."

"I am obviously not speaking of the Amoeba Boys, you dolt! I mean my sons! They are not here, and if they are not here, then where is the location they are to be found at? The sooner you tell me this fact, the less likely it will be that I blast your pretty little head off with my proton disintegrator!"

"You think I'm pretty?"

Mojo shook his fist at HIM who was ready to argue, when Princess yelled at them from the opposite end of the corridor.

"Hey, shut up over there and listen! HIM, your temper-shifting spell—"

"Temporal-shifting spell," HIM corrected.

"Yeah, whatever! I think it's getting weaker or something. This door doesn't lead to the same place!" She gestured to them, and they hurried back to the her. The door opened into a bleached-white room, with a machine in the center. A metal frame held a thick glass dome over three almost doll-like figures, who had large tubes forced into their mouths. They looked almost like the Powerpuffs Girls had ten years ago, back when they had been five.

"The Rowdyruff Boys! I will release them from that devious contraption and free them from their imprisonment!" yelled Mojo. He pulled out his proton disintegrator despite Princess and HIM's protests. Mojo fired, a stream of blazing green energy blasted the metal device, and the light inside the room changed to red. Another alarm blared, and they heard a yell over a loudspeaker above them.

Mojo rushed headfirst into danger as he was wont to do, and pulled the tubes from the boys' mouths. He picked the boys up and examined them. They looked much the same as they had when he had last seen them, but their skin was deathly pale with green blotches. Mojo carefully opened Brick's eyes and saw the whites of his eyes were red. Mojo opened Brick's mouth, and saw that his tongue was rusty brown.

"Something tells me this is not good—agh!" Mojo screech as his signature white gloves crinkled up and rotted away.

HIM raised an eyebrow. "Hmm, seems that our boys have the power to decay things." He clicked a claw, and the Rowdyruff Boys blinked out of existence in a flash of pink light. "I'll send them back to my dimension for safekeeping." He grinned.

"I thought we agreed that they did not belong to us! Or that we deserve them equally!" Mojo yelled.

Princess was impatient. "Shut up! Free the other villains or whatever before they locate us and lock us up too!" She activated her jetpack and flew back through the hall with the cells, using her blasters to shoot the panels outside each one.

HIM's eyes glowed in anticipation. "This will be fun!"


	2. The Boys Are Back in Town, Times Two

Blossom sat on the living room couch with her father. She sighed. It had only been about a week since her family had found out about her supplying information to the government, and although she had promised to stop, she still felt nervous.

"What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Blossom?" asked the Professor.

"Professor, they say my connection to SCO is supposedly terminated, but I don't know how to undo what I've already done."

Professor Utonium wrapped an arm around her. "Everyone makes mistakes, Blossom. Sometimes they're big mistakes, but you can still learn from them. For now, just focus on your duty as a superheroine. We can deal with the fallout as it comes," he said.

"But... you've seen destruction the—" The hotline buzzed, cutting off Blossom's words. Before she could get it, a green streak sped down the stairs.

Buttercup picked up. "Yeah, mayor? A monster's eating everything? No... okay, whatever. We'll be right there." She hung up. "Bubbles!" she called to upstairs. "Something's making everything rust or rot in the city!" Buttercup noticed Blossom and the Professor sitting on the couch. "Too bad if you wanted to get it, Blossom. Old habits die hard."

Blossom rolled her eyes, and Bubbles flew down. The girls blasted off to the city of Townsville. When they landed in front of City hall, what they saw shocked them. Giant holes were rusted into every sign, buildings around them were missing chunks of stone, and window glass had just melted and slid away. The plants, and leaves of the trees were brown and withered.

"Look over there!" Blossom pointed to the city center. Three small figures flew through the air. One of them punched an apartment building, and from the area of impact, the bricks slowly eroded, leaving behind a gaping hole.

"They're flying towards the Museum! We have to stop them." The girls rushed to the Art Museum, intercepting the three monsters. When the girls got a good look at their enemy, they gasped.

Three bug-eyed boys, one blond, one brunette, and one red-haired stared at them, but their eyes seemed unfocused. They each had yellowed skin, and bloodshot pink eyes.

"The Rowdyruff Boys! They look zombie-fied," said Bubbles.

Buttercup frowned."And they're stupidly small!"

" I guess they weren't artificially aged to teenagerhood like we were," said Blossom. "Not everyone's lucky enough to have the Professor."

The boys flew at them, and the girls dodged. Each boy then dashed after his counterpart.

Brick shot his orange Eye Beams at Blossom, who evaded each blast. Brick stalled for a moment, and Blossom took the opportunity to kick him in the stomach, her now superior strength sending him into the blacktop with a smash.

Butch swung his arm, ready to punch Buttercup in the head, but she easily blocked him. She grabbed his arm and spun him around and around, and then let him go. Butch hurtled into the road next to his brother.

Boomer chased Bubbles around the buildings, before she ducked into an alley. Boomer looked around, and then just floated, as if waiting for instructions. Bubbles popped out of the alley, and Sonic Screamed at him with all her might. Boomer held his head, and dropped like a rock when Bubbles stopped yelling.

"Ow..." he mumbled. "Where am I?"

"Girls!" called Bubbles. "He's talking!"

Blossom and Buttercup dashed to Boomer, who was cradling his head and moaning.

Buttercup pointed to him. "Where'd you get this decay power from? Answer me!"

"I dunno, I was just—hey, why should I tell you lame girls anything! I..." His eyes drifted apart, and he trailed off. He floated up again and rushed Blossom, hitting her in the face. Bubbles and Buttercup kicked and punched him, and Buttercup threw him into his brothers.

"Let's take 'em to the Pro—ow!" Buttercup, held her arm where she had touched Butch. There was a red rash on it. Bubbles soon noticed the same kind of rash where she had hit Boomer, and Blossom felt her face burning.

"How do we carry them?" asked Bubbles.

"Well, we obviously can't touch them," said Blossom. Her eye was shut from the pain. "but if we put something over our hands, they'll just eat through it."

Buttercup grinned. "Leave it to me." She flew into the air and whirled around, forming a green tornado. The boys were soon sucked up into the vortex.

Bubbles and Blossom smiled and led Buttercup home. But when they arrived, they were left with a dilemma.

"Can I stop yet?" yelled Buttercup. The pull of her tornado was tearing up the girls' front lawn.

"Uh, Bubbles, get the Professor and tell him we have three superpowered boys to put into quarantine." Blossom watched Buttercup worriedly, trying to figure out a way to get the boys inside. Bubbles flew into the house, and came back out a few long minutes later with the Professor in tow.

"Bubbles explained the situation," said the Professor. He was carrying a remote control. "Don't worry, girls. This is a great time to show you a silver lining of the storm cloud that is DYNAMO!" He pressed the button on the control, and the garage began to shake. The roof split down the middle, and slid open, revealing his laboratory. "Drop them in, Buttercup!"

Buttercup flew off dizzily, and the Rowdyruff Boys fell into a giant metal case. The girls and the Professor ran back into the house and into the laboratory, and the Professor slammed the case shut.

The Professor wiped sweat from his brow. "All right, girls, now knowing what Bubbles's Sonic Scream did to Boomer, we can start testing the effect of various frequencies on the Rowdyruff Boys." He walked to a dashboard with many flashing buttons, and he grabbed a red dial. He turned it to the slowly to the right, and inside the case, the boys began to moan, then shake. Suddenly, Brick opened his eyes.

Brick sat up and rubbed his head. "Ugh... w-what test is it this time? How loud a sound you can blast us with till we go insa—what the..." Brick pounded his brother's backs. "Get up now!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Look! She's the one who trapped us!" He pointed to the Blossom, who winced. "Destroy her!"

"All right! Finally a real fight!" yelled Butch.

Butch and Boomer got to their feet, and blasted forward. The bulletproof glass on the case shattered, and they flew right at the Powerpuff Girls.

The girls shoved the Professor to the floor, knocking the wind out of him. The boys flew over their heads and crashed into the wall, scattering test tubes which shattered on the floor.

The girls leapt up and struck fighting poses. The boys slowly turned around. Their eyes bleary, they were under outside control once more. Once again, the boys and girls focused on their counterparts.

Buttercup, disregarding the pain she'd feel later, punched Butch full-force into the wall. The wall melted away, leaving a hole to the yard.

Brick rushed Blossom with a flying kick. She dodged and used his momentum to swing him into the floor.

Bubbles stayed close to the Professor, who was still on his stomach. Boomer dashed at her and grabbed her ponytail, but she spun like a ballerina, and Boomer flew into the ceiling. The ceiling rusted, and debris fell over everyone in the room, dust flying every which way.

The girls used their Super Breath, but when the dust cleared, the boys were nowhere to be seen.

"Oh," said the Professor. He coughed. "I'm too old for this... Look, girls, the basement door's open! They're in the house right now!"

The girls shared a worried look and then sped up the stairs. Plates, cookware, and pieces of their kitchen was being melted and decayed by the Rowdyruff Boys.

Their half-dissolved fridge hit Bubbles. Blossom and Buttercup charged the boys. They grabbed them out the air, and bashed them into each other. Bubbles punched through the now melted fridge and squashed the boys into a ball, and kicked them through the wall and into the yard.

"I demand you not fight! Cease and desist! You will stop now!" a familiar voice came from outside. The girls flew out of one of the many holes in the wall, and landed in the front yard. In front of the crater where the boys had smashed into the grass, stood a very irritated-looking Mojo Jojo.

"We've got no time for you, Mojo. We have to stop these idiots," said Buttercup.

"I am the one who carries the responsibility of fixing these boys, not you! They are under the influence of what you teenage girls would call mind control, and I intend to free them from it by—" Buttercup rushed him and grabbed his collar. She hovered in the air and got ready to punch him to the end of the block.

Blossom and Bubbles held her back. "Buttercup, stop!" yelled Blossom. "Let's listen to what he has to say. After all, it is my fault that the boys are like this..."

Buttercup grudgingly let Mojo down. Mojo dusted himself off, and adjusted his spectacles. "As I was saying, my boys are under the influence of a form of mind control used by the government, more specifically the SCO. This mind control, which is a specific sound frequency, would not normally affect them, so I have, correctly I am certain, assumed that the Rowdyruff Boys have been infected with some other organism that is susceptible to the frequency."

The girls looked at each other, trying to figure out what he meant. "So..." said Blossom, "we have to somehow separate the boys from this other organism?"

Just then, the Professor stumbled out the door. He coughed and rubbed his eyes because of the fallen plaster in the house. "Girls! I just found something very interesting! The boys' powers ate through everything except these pickles, the kind mayor likes—is that Mojo?"

"Yes, it is I, Mojo Jojo! If you know what is good for your future well-being, you will hand over those pickles to me!" He shook his fist impatiently.

"Why?" asked the Professor, and all three girls.

"Because I have a functioning cloning machine and you do not!" yelled Mojo. "Argh! Fine, I will explain! The boys could be suffering from an infection that only some mold on those pickles can neutralize."

The girls glared at him skeptically, but the Professor smiled. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that? That explains everything," he said. "We should get to work immediately. Girls, try to use your tornado ability to carry them to Mojo's observatory on the double! Quick! Before they wake up!"

* * *

At the volcano-top observatory, the two greatest scientific minds of Townsville (not counting Blossom) were working hard on isolating the cure. The dizzy Powerpuff Girls kept a close eye on Mojo, making sure he didn't try anything, while the boys were held in a repurposed old Powerpuff trap.

"So, Mojo," said the Professor, examining rather comically-oversized slides of magnified pickle on one of Mojo's computer monitors. "I didn't know you still looked after the Rowdyruff Boys. I thought it was HIM who had control of them."

Mojo snorted. "Oh, please. As if anybody could really control them. Although HIM would have tried to stop them this time, if they had not melted all of his cosmetics. He says he looks far too plain to go out into public without makeup on." Mojo let out a long-suffering sigh.

"So you're just doing this because the cruelest of the cruel told you to?" asked Bubbles.

"I am not doing this for HIM! I am only doing it so they can eventually take over my position and ravage Townsville in place of me."

"So you don't care about them as more than little killing machines?" asked Buttercup.

Mojo was about to say something, but the Professor noticed something in another slide. "By golly, I think I've found it! Look at this! I don't recognize this strain of bacteria, and it refuses to grow around this pickle-fungus!"

"Seriously? Pickle-fungus?" asked Buttercup. "Typical. Just typical."

"Now for the fun part; cloning!" Professor Utonium, Mojo, and the girls walked into one of the observatory's side rooms. Metals doors unsealed, and the five of them walked past test tubes with bright-colored liquid inside, and eventually they reached a dusty old contraption.

"I do not remember the details," said Mojo, "but I believe I once used this device to clone myself." He blew dust and cobwebs off he machine.

The Professor slid the fungus sample into the machine, and Mojo pressed a few buttons. The cloning machine made a whirring sound. Suddenly, it exploded all over the place, flooding the room with green dust.

"This has been a bad day for my lungs," said the Professor.

The girls breathed in with super suction, and held the fungus dust in their cheeks. They flew back into the center of the observatory, and used their Super Breath to hit the Rowdyruff Boys with it.

The boys starting quivering, and then they coughed uncontrollably. Their faces reddened, and just before it looked like they'd fall apart, their eyes flew open. They shook more and more, until with a disgusting slurping noise, a bluish glob was released from their skin. The glob formed into three blobs, and the boy's skin color went back to its normal peach tone. They collapsed from exhaustion, asleep.

Eyes and mouths appeared on the blobs. One of them, the widest, talked.

"H-hey, this green stuff's makin' me sni-sni-sniffly," he said. He sneezed.

"Dayhee, yeah," said the tallest blob. "Sniffly."

"I just dreamed we was destoryin' the Powerpuff Gerls," said the smallest blob.

The girls, Professor Utonium, and Mojo were all completely gobsmacked. "The Amoeba Boys were the ones infecting them the whole time?" yelled Blossom.

"Well, that would explain their absence..." Mojo mumbled.

The Powerpuff Girls shrugged, and grabbed the Professor. They blasted a hole in the observatory dome with their Eye Beams, and flew off.

"Wait, you accursed Powerpuff Girls!" yelled Mojo. "what am I supposed to do with these single-celled failures of villainy, these flunkies the Amoeba Boys, and how am I meant to clean all this fungus out of my laboratory?"

The girls just left and didn't look back, leaving Mojo ranting and cursing their names in the distance.


	3. A Not-So-Bubbly First Love

It was a lovely autumn day. The air was crisp and cool without being chilly, the lazier squirrels were busy collecting food, and the leaves of the trees were just beginning to turn. Usually, Bubbles would spend a day like this outside enjoying her patrol and getting the latest news from her animal friends, but instead, she was inside, parked in front of her vanity.

"Blossom, should I wear it down today? If I don't wear it down, are these aquamarine bows good, or are these powderpuff blue ones better?" Bubbles furiously brushed her hair.

Blossom looked up from her book. "Bubbles, this really isn't that important! I'm sure however you go will be fine." Blossom was already dressed in a silky hot pink dress, and she had on a pearl necklace. Her own hair didn't have to be meticulously combed; it fell perfectly as always.

"That's coming from someone whose hair looks beautiful with no effort whatsoever! Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, look at the time!" Bubbles floated up and then blasted down the stairs and into the living room. She jostled Buttercup, who was laying on the couch playing her green DS.

"Buttercup! You have to get dressed now!" Bubbles nearly screeched.

Buttercup dropped her DS. "What's your problem, Bubbles?" she yelled. "I told you I'm not going! And why're you so damn worked up, anyway? You don't even have a date."

Bubbles sent Buttercup a look that, if looks could kill, would have been an H-Bomb. "Well, if you're still bitter over Mitch getting a girlfriend, that's your problem."

Buttercup bared her teeth like a dog. "I said never mention that again," she said through gritted teeth. "You're the one livin' in the past. You still wanna be the 'prettiest girl at the party'!"

Bubbles stuck her tongue out at Buttercup, and went back upstairs to grab Blossom, but in Bubbles's heart, she was wounded.

* * *

Blossom eventually convinced Buttercup to go with them, knowing Buttercup never could pass up a chance to entertain her schoolmates with her superpowers. The Powerpuff Girls were indeed the hit of the party. After all, it wasn't often that a student could incorporate flying and perfect flips into their dance moves. The three girls were happy to please as always, but one of them was not content.

Bubbles noticed that even though everybody applauded them for their amazing powers, not one boy asked them to dance. Blossom still wanted to wait until she was older to date, and Buttercup stopped expressing interest in romance as she got older, but Bubbles was frustrated. She worked harder on her appearance than Blossom ever did, and she was as bubbly and kind as ever, so why wouldn't anybody notice her? She decided to find out.

The girls usually split up to patrol Townsville now that they were more experienced, and Bubbles went to visit the lady she thought would have the most knowledge on such things. Bubbles floated through the City Hall, and not seeing who she was looking for, opened the doors to the Mayor's office.

The Mayor was laying on his desk, snoring. The room was imbued with the smell of vinegar, and Bubbles assumed correctly that he was having an after-snack nap. She was debating whether to wake him, when Ms. Bellum appeared. She made a shushing sound, and led Bubbles out of the office, and softly shut the door.

"Mayor's just having his afternoon nap, Bubbles. Could I help you instead?"

Bubbles smiled. "Actually, you're the one I wanted to see all along! You see, I'm having a problem. Or noticed one."

"Well, I'm flattered that you'd want to ask my advice." Ms. Bellum pulled up a desk chair. "Here, have a seat."

Bubbles sat down. Her smile faded. "Ms. Bellum, why does nobody want me? The whole city loves us! Are they... intimidated by our powers? They go to school right with us! Is it because I'm a bug-eyed girl with no fingers or toes? I'm as human as the rest of them!" she screeched.

"Oh, Bubbles. You just have to find the right person. I wouldn't worry if I were you. I think you're just rushing ahead."

Bubbles frowned. "That's easy for you to say! You're so pretty, you must have lots of men!"

Ms. Bellum looked down, embarrassed, and rubbed the back of her unusually-long neck. "Uh... Bubbles, I'm glad you think so. Actually, I haven't had any romantic entanglements in a long time. You see, having a nice body is one thing. What's really important is having somebody who loves you for your inner self.

"You're a cheerful, compassionate girl. Remember that that's more important than how you look or that you have superpowers."

Bubbles got up and floated. "Well... okay, Ms. Bellum. I'll wait some more. Hey, do you have anybody who appreciates you like that?"

"I do have one. He'd be absolutely lost without me."

* * *

The next few days passed without incident. Between the foiling of bank robberies and the constant stream of schoolwork, the worries about dating were pushed into the back of Bubbles's mind. Then came the announcement in her honors World Literature class.

"All right, kids," said the teacher, Mr. Green (he had moved up to teaching high school). "We have a new transfer student today!" He waved to somebody outside the door. "Why don't you write your name on the board?"

A short, thin, bent-over young man in a grey hoodie, who looked older than the other students, walked in. He had shoulder-length black hair and semicircular glasses, which he adjusted, and without saying a word or looking at the class, he carefully picked up a marker and wrote his name on the dry-erase board: Carson Franks.

Mr. Green looked at him expectantly, waited for him to introduce himself, and was disappointed when he said nothing. Mr. Green cleared his throat. "Well, since he looks a little bit shy, I'd like to say that our new student has a heart condition, so please don't excite him too much. Could somebody show him the way to the nurse's office?"

Nobody was speaking up. Bubbles levitated from her seat. "I'll show him where it is, Mr. Green!" She floated up to Carson, smiling.

Carson sighed and turned around, and when he saw Bubbles, he gasped. He stared at her blankly, then he seemed to recognize her. "You're a superhum—superhero? One of the... Powerpuff Girls?"

Bubbles nodded. "Yep. Nice to meet you. I'm Bubbles, or the 'joy and the laughter' of the team!" She led him from the room and down the hall.

Carson's energy was completely different around Bubbles; he was very eager to hear about her. "Tell me, Bubbles, how do you find being a superhero?"

"Oh, well, you know, it's a living!... or not... but it's our duty, you know? Sometimes it's hard to handle all the pressure, but it's also really fun to have the powers, and it's really rewarding to protect the people. It's a trade-off," she said happily.

Carson looked down at his feet. "Your life is fulfilling? I've heard about you and your sisters, and it seems that the citizens of this city weren't always kind towards the three of you."

Bubbles spun around to face him, and floated backwards. "That was a big misunderstanding. We just didn't realize how to handle things responsibly yet. But once we saved the city, everybody liked us and we got our jobs—oh, here's the office! Talk to you later, Carson!" Bubbles zipped back down the hall, leaving a very intrigued student behind.

* * *

Bubbles and Buttercup met each other by the bus stop after school like they always did, but this time, there was something different. Buttercup raised an eyebrow quizzically at the moody-looking, greasy young man following her sister.

"Let me introduce my new friend, Carson Franks! He's a transfer student." She waved excitedly.

"Okay..." said Buttercup. "I'm Buttercup, but I guess you know that already. Nice to meetcha."

Carson nodded. "It's great to see such beings so well-accepted by the common man."

Bubbles and Buttercup looking at each other. "Uh-huh. See you after patrol, Bubbles." Buttercup blasted off.

Bubbles held her tongue in her cheek. "Mm... Carson, I think maybe you could've..." she trailed off when a small, shaggy looking squirrel ran up to her and grabbed her sock. "Huh?" Bubbles got down on her knees. The squirrel chirped. "What's that? A cigarette butt set a tree on fire in the park? I'm on it!" Bubbles sped off towards Townsville Park.

"Did you just talk to that squirrel?" Carson shouted after her.

"That's right! I can speak any language!" Bubbles entered the park and stopped at a small stream. Using her super-breath, she sucked up the water and kept speeding along. She found the burning tree, and spat the water at it with the force of a fire-hose.

She smiled at her handiwork. "Another job well done!" she said. She blasted back to the bus stop, this whole job only taking a few seconds.

Carson stared at her for a moment. Then, he actually smiled. "Bubbles, I'm very impressed. Have you ever considered how your great power could be used for saving the environment?"

"Actually, yes! All the time! I'm thinking about being an activist when I get older. Are you interested in it?"

Carson clasped Bubbles 'hands' in his own. "I've always been trying of find ways to save the Earth. I'd love to have a deep discussion about it with you."

Bubbles blushed a little. "Oh, uh... well, I don't know, I could be washing my ha—I mean, uh, yes! Yes!" She stumbled over her words. "I mean... how about we take a walk in the park on S-saturday?"

"Wonderful! How about two?"

"Uh, yeah! Great! See you!" Bubbles flew into the air and raced home. "I have a date!" she squealed once she was out of earshot. She flew in joyous bright-blue curlicues.

* * *

Bubbles held her ponytail, which was combed smooth, in place with a poofy bow, and she slipped on her electric-blue Mary Janes instead of her usual black ones. She smiled confidently at herself in her mirror, and gave herself a wink. She floated smugly down the steps, and to the kitchen.

"How are you doing, Professor?" she asked her dad, who was busy washing dishes.

"Well enough, I suppose! How are you, Bubbles?"

"I have a date! In a few minutes!" She leapt up and started spinning around the living room.

The Professor's jaw went slack, and he dropped a plate into the sink with a crash. "A date?" he screamed. "My daughter has a date! Augh!"

His yells were so loud that Blossom and Buttercup rushed downstairs to see what was wrong. "Professor, are you all right?" asked Blossom nervously.

Bubbles hopped up and down. "I have a date!"

Professor Utonium held his head, ignoring the soapy water on his rubber gloves. "She has a date!"

Buttercup and Blossom gasped. "Bubbles has a date?" they asked incredulously. Bubbles stopped hopping.

"That's right! In the park," she said. "With the new student, Carson! He's into environmental studies too! And he's smart. He's in advanced placement."

Blossom hugged Bubbles. "Great, Bubbles! I'm sure you'll time have a wonderful time. You're ready for all kinds of exploration at this age."

Buttercup just gave Bubbles a pat on the back. "Yeah, go out and have some fun."

Bubbles flew to the front door and waved goodbye to her family. "See you guys later! I'll fill you in on all the details!" She zipped off down the road.

There was a long pause in the Utonium household, until after a while, the Professor spoke. "We are going to hide in the bushes, right girls?"

Blossom nodded. "Of course. We can't let her get into any trouble."

Buttercup crossed her arms. "Well, duh."

* * *

Bubbles walked to the edge of the park. She looked left and right, before using her X-ray vision. She spotted Carson, who was sitting on a bench behind a patch of trees. Bubbles was ready to blast forward, but she stopped herself. "I've got to play it cool!" she said softly. "But wait... I also don't want him to think I don't like him. Maybe if I fly not too fast not too slow, but even that isn't—eek!"

"Hello, Bubbles." Carson had walked over to her while she was monologuing. "Apologies if I've startled you."

Bubbles wiped sweat from her brow. "Oh, no problem. So, what did you want to talk about?" she asked coyly.

Carson handed her a long missive that she hadn't even noticed he had been carrying. "Tell me what you think of this, Bubbles. I've been working on it for quite some time now."

Bubbles skimmed a few pages. "Townsville Soil Fertility, and the Effect On Local Fauna... wow, Carson, this looks like graduate school work! Are you sure you're not a professional already?"

Carson didn't respond. "What are your thoughts?" he said impatiently.

"Well, I definitely agree about how our volcano's increased the soil fertility, and I agree that the toxic waste and, er... monster remains need to be disposed of better," Bubbles tried to sound as intelligent as possible, channeling Blossom. Bubbles felt a vibration with her supersonic hearing. She spun around to look behind her, at a line of bushes.

"Yes?"

"Nothing. I thought I heard somebody. Let's go to the benches closer to the volcano, kay?"

They walked away, and neither saw Blossom, Buttercup, and the Professor trailing them. The Professor had on a bird-watcher's hat with fake foliage attached to it, and he had binoculars desperately pressed to his face.

"You know, maybe this is stupid," said Buttercup.

"Yeah, maybe this is a little extreme Professor. Let's just go home," said Blossom.

"No!" hissed the Professor. "I don't have a gun to polish, so I have to do something!"

The two girls rolled their eyes and picked him up, flying into the air to spy on Bubbles from above. Bubbles and Carson were seated on the bench closest to the volcano, and were talking animatedly about environmental ethics.

"When I was six, uh, mentally six anyway, I always used to bring home animals to keep them safe. I once tried to keep a baby whale in the house!" Bubbles giggled. "Then after I learned my lesson, I broke out all the zoo animals. That was a big mess!"

"I understand perfectly," said Carson solemnly. "As a young child, you wouldn't understand how zoo animals have no desire to be freed."

"Yeah, that was pretty much it." Bubbles looked down at her shoes. "Pretty silly, huh?"

"No, it's not. Most people are completely apathetic to the lives of non-human animals and the ecosystem."

Bubbles looked at him oddly. "I wouldn't say that—hey, what's up there in the sky?" She and Carson looked up, and saw the Professor being carried by Blossom and Buttercup. The Professor turned pale, then grinned and waved sheepishly. He disappeared with green and pink streaks.

"That was your family?" asked Carson. "What were they doing?"

Bubbles thought for a moment, then pouted. "I bet they wanted to spy on me." She rolled her eyes. "As if I'm not mature enough to take care of myself, even if none of us have had a date before..."

Carson looked at her confusedly. Clearly he had not thought of this as a date, and was about to tell her as much, but he stopped himself. "You three are too busy to socialize, then?"

Bubbles sighed. "No, not really. Sometimes our job gets in the way, but we have lots of friends. It's just, I guess guys don't wanna go out with girls who have giant weird eyes and arms that look like hockey sticks. Or maybe they think we're untouchable, like the stars in the sky... but we're probably just ugly." She let out a bitter, half-hearted laugh.

Carson got up from the bench and paused for a moment. He hesitantly turned back to face Bubbles. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Bubbles, I don't know what you've heard, but you seem very beautiful to me."

Bubbles head snapped up, and her mouth got dry. She blubbered. "I-I, I don't, uh, you know, um, I gotta go! Gotta brush my car! See ya!" She hopped into the air and blasted off.

"Maybe wasn't the best thing to say," muttered Carson. "Or is she always like this?"

* * *

When the hotline buzzed, Blossom was the only one awake (she was studying, of course). She picked up. "Yes, Mayor? A monster's holding up traffic on Citiesville Bridge? Yes, of course we'll be right there." Blossom rolled her eyes and hung up. "Rise and shine, girls! Let's go!"

The Powerpuff Girls flew to the bridge with urgency. The bridge was still the only way for commuters to reach the town, as the girls had learned when they blew it up years ago.

The first thing the girls noticed, even before they saw the bridge, was a ghastly screeching like nails on a chalkboard, the sound of metal grinding against metal. When the bridge did enter their sights, they were struck dumb. Whirling in the air and tightly wound around the supports, were hundreds of drills, each one as thick as a person's arm.

"We have to tell the mayor to be more fuckin' specific!" said Buttercup.

Blossom and Bubbles gave her a harsh look, and then the three of them landed as on the bridge's deck as softly as possible. In the center of the massive, tangled cage of spinning drills, the girls saw a very stoic, grim Carson Franks.

"Carson!" called Bubbles. "Don't worry! We'll save you!" She rocketed into the drills, followed by her sisters.

"Wait, Powerpuff Girls, stop—" began Carson, but it was too late. The girls punched and kicked at the drills, which coiled around them and swung them upside down. As the girls struggled, they saw with their telescoping vision the source of the drills was Carson's own head. His hair was spun seamlessly into metal, and Carson's eyes were an unearthly pale yellow, as if he had giant cataracts. He looked up at them with a worried look.

"Girls, calm down and I won't harm any of you, nor will I harm your father. I can explain everything," he said. "I know Bubbles will understand most of all."

The Powerpuff Girls felt like moths in a spider's web. "Why aren't our powers letting us break free?" Blossom grunted.

"As you've noticed, I'm not completely human," Carson replied matter-of-factly. "Then again, I'm not a totally different creature, as you three are."

"You're callin' us inhuman? You're the one putting all these people in danger!" yelled Buttercup. "You think you can explain all these busted cars on the bridge?"

Carson nodded. "I don't remember exactly who I was before the government imprisoned me. I do recall being branded an eco-terrorist, and other demeaning titles." Bubbles's eyes widened at this, but she remained quiet. Carson continued. "I was considered less than human when I was truly more aware than any of them ever were. The SCO, I'm certain you are familiar with it, fused me with this alien consciousness."

Blossom winced at the mention of the SCO's testing.

"Don't send me your sympathy," said Carson. He smiled. "It was the best stroke of luck I've ever encountered! I escaped, and I must say, not without exacting a bit of petty revenge on my captors. What can I say, I'm imperfect.

"I escaped to Townsville, as I remembered faintly of its lax policy of dumping volatile chemicals into the ocean. If the monsters from Monster Isle could grow so powerful from them, so could I.

"My progress was halted when an obsessed truant officer forced me into high school, mistaking me for a teen due to my slouch and emaciation. But now I'm ready."

"Why hurt Townsville? Why would you want revenge on us?" moaned Blossom, the drills constricting her breathing.

"Not revenge. Something pure. Don't you know that the population should be kept under five-hundred-million for the good of the Earth? I'll just start the cleaning of our planet with the city I'm in right now. I'll vibrate this bridge at just the right frequency to destroy every man-made structure in the city."

"No!" Buttercup screamed and spun into her signature Tornado attack. The drills that held her flew off in every direction, and she shot towards the cage of them that protected Carson. With a battle-cry, Buttercup's "hand" glowed bright red, and she smashed into the drills, sending a shockwave through them and Carson's body.

Carson released Blossom and Bubbles. Blossom and Buttercup were about to finish him, when Bubbles, who had been silent the whole time, screeched. "Girls! Stop! H-he has a heart condition!"

"The prison hospital will take care of him!" yelled Blossom. Unfortunately, this gave Carson enough time to bring about twenty drills to him, and form them into two gigantic ones. They whirled towards Buttercup and Blossom, but stopped before hitting them.

Blossom used her Ice Breath to freeze them both solid, but they shook. The ice cracked, and the drills just curled more tightly into itself. With no warning, they vibrated wildly, a sound like a giant bell ringing emanating from them, drowning our all other sound, rendering Blossom and Buttercup prone on the road. They held their heads, temporarily deaf.

Bubbles broke out into sobs. "C-Carson! Stop! Don't hurt them!"

"That was carefully calculated, Bubbles. Don't worry. With their superpowers, that frequency should keep them down only for enough time to carry out my plan." He sent his drills back to coil around the bridge, and walked to Bubbles. "Shh, it's okay," he said, trying to comfort her.

"No it's not!" Bubbles screamed with so much force, Carson jumped back. "You can't kill people to save the Earth! Can't you see what a hypocrite you are? That's like Hitler!"

"Bubbles, so many humans are just mindless consumers. It isn't a waste. I won't purge all humans."

"If you knew better, you'd know all life's precious!" tears pooled in Bubbles's eyes.

"But each human being directly or indirectly causes deaths all the time," said Carson calmly. "I don't understand."

"I'm a superhero, Carson. I'm not gonna let you kill these people!" Bubbles wiped the tears from her eyes. "I don't want to hurt you," she said quietly.

Carson looked down, and then brought more drills to himself. They wound together into giant ones, and he shot one on each side of Bubbles.

Her sister were stirring, and saw what he was planning. "B-Bubbles," said Blossom, "look out!"

"Yeah, hit him!" yelled Buttercup.

The drills vibrated, but just before they became deafening, Bubbles used her Sonic Scream, her Ultrasonic BubbleSound. Her voice at just the right tone, it interrupted Carson's frequency, reducing his drills into powerless, thin, silvery hairs.

Bubbles's yell kept increasing in volume, until Carson's alien mind couldn't take it anymore. He blacked out.

* * *

"I'm so sorry about what happened, Bubbles," said Blossom. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Bubbles shook her head. She sat in front of the vanity once more, looking at her hair, which was now frizzy and no longer smooth. She flipped it back, deciding it was acceptable.

"I know what you're going through," said Buttercup, more softly than she usually spoke. "I remember how I felt when Ace betrayed me, the bastard..."

Bubbles turned to face them. "You know, I'm looking on the bright side. I mean, if one alien-human hybrid man could think I'm, beautiful, why can't another?"

Her sisters laughed, and Bubbles soon joined them. "You're optimism'll never die, will it?" asked Buttercup.

Blossom smiled sympathetically. "Let's have dinner. The Professor's made mashed potatoes just the way you like them. If you need support, Bubbles, we'll be there." They floated downstairs.

Bubbles watched them leave before walking to the room's center window. She stared at the stars, made a wish, and decided to swing by the city jail when she patrolled the next day.


	4. Mo' Family Mo' Problems

_A/N: There are disturbing themes in this chapter, and it's darker than the others have been. I hope you enjoy anyway!_

The volcano-top observatory had been almost completely restored to the state it had been in a decade ago. It had been left alone, either out of a warped sense of sentimental value from the townspeople, or because Mojo's lockdown defense system still worked (he had to enlist Princess's seemingly endless wealth to create a way to bypass it once more). The hole DYNAMO had left had been patched, albeit temporarily, with non-extraterrestrial metals.

Mojo had been closely observing the quarantine chamber for almost a week, but the Rowdyruff Boys finally looked normal. After checking the vitals one more time, Mojo pressed a green button, and the cylindrical glass chamber opened. Inside, the Rowdyruff Boys were already conscious. Brick and Boomer were up first, and they pulled Butch up. Butch shoved them away testily and started twitching from boredom, and the three boys floated out of the chamber.

"What game are we gonna play now?" asked Boomer.

"Yeah! I need to blow somethin' up! Wait, you're lettin' us out?" asked Butch. He jittered as he took is his surroundings.

Brick squinted at Mojo. Then recognition dawned on him. "I remember you! You created us! Did you rescue us to use as your toys again?" He flew up to Mojo and yanked him by the collar, not quite putting him in a blood choke. Brick pulled his arm back, his intentions clear. "Listen, pops, we're perfectly capable of killing you if you try and pull anything. Now talk!"

Mojo blinked in surprise at his son's personality. Brick had changed quite dramatically from the time they had last seen each other. "If you would kindly let me down," Mojo said through gritted teeth, "I will explain why you are here. The killing of me will not be necessary."

Brick sneered and dropped him. Mojo told the Rowdyruff Boys how they were infected by the Amoeba Boys and their minds were hijacked by the government to destroy the Powerpuff Girls, ironically their original purpose to begin with. Brick listened intently while his brothers kept themselves busy by flying around and inspecting the laboratory.

Mojo had nearly finished his long, redundant telling of the story, when he heard glass shattering. He ran towards the source of the sound, and saw Boomer and Butch fighting over a ship from his fastidiously managed collection of ships in bottles.

"Stop that at once!" yelled Mojo. "Those are not toys, they are display items and are for display as decorations only, and are to be used for no other purpose, a rule you two are clearly disregarding!"

Boomer and Butch shared a confused look, trying to puzzle out what Mojo meant. "Maybe they're not toys," said Butch, eventually. "but they're fun to break!" He sent a flying kick into another, and the bottle shattered, leaving only the ship intact. Butch grabbed the ship and rammed into the one Boomer was holding, splintering both ships.

Mojo watched in horror as the two boys flew in circles around his lab like dragonflies on speed. They had broken four windows when Mojo screamed at them once again, thankfully getting their attention. "Boomer and Butch, stop, cease, desist! Do not continue with this behavior that involves bringing destruction to my private property! Why can you not play nicely like your brother—wait." Mojo looked for Brick, and found him sitting in the middle of the floor, shifting through documents. Every so often, Brick would toss a paper aside and burn it to ashes with his Eye Beams.

"What are you looking at?" asked Brick without looking around.

Mojo raced halfway across his observatory once more, and when he reached his son, he was out of breath. "What is it you are doing with my old plans for taking over and gaining control of the city of Townsville? Why are you vaporizing them? I demand you provide me with an explanation for your actions this instant!"

Brick still didn't turn around. "I'm doing you a favor, you know. I'm just getting rid of the plans that are stupid. Too bad that's almost all of them."

Mojo was taken aback. "How dare you tell me most of my plans are stupid, and insinuate that I am stupid as well? This is unacceptable and inappropriate behavior for a son to display towards his father!" Mojo grabbed Brick's left arm, and he finally turned to face Mojo. Brick bared his teeth and growled. He pulled his arm away, and punched Mojo with enough force to stun even a Powerpuff Girl, sending him flying through the air, and then crashing into a pile of dusty old boxes that were stacked in the side of the room. Some boxes collapsed, and Mojo was soon buried under metal gadgets and pieces of his forgotten, failed inventions.

"Don't forget my power, Mojoke! I'm better and more intelligent than you!" Brick went back to shifting through the old documents and schematics.

Boomer and Butch laughed at the scene. "Hey, Brick, now that we're free, let's do something!" Butch called to him.

Boomer waved his arms wildly. "Yeah! Let's play freeze tag!"

"Nah," said Butch. "I don't wanna haveta sit still. I've got a better idea! Let's play laser tag!" Butch zapped Boomer his his Eye Beams and grinned madly. He blasted away from Boomer. "Tag, you're it, dummy!"

Boomer recovered quickly. "Hey, I'm not the dummy! The one who said it's the dummy!" Boomer shot his own Eye Beams at Butch, but couldn't hit him because of his brother's ticcy, unpredictable movements. "Fine! Have it you're way! You're it, Brick!" Boomer blasted Brick.

Brick fumed. "I'm not playing your dumb game!" he yelled. "I'm busy trying to think of a way to destroy the Powerpuff Girls!"

Boomer stuck his tongue out at Brick. "If you can't handle the frying-pan, stay out of the fire."

Brick blasted into the air, his power uncontrolled and leaving a crater on the floor. He bashed Boomer in the stomach and sent him hurtling through the observatory roof. Butch saw this, and shot after Brick, thinking this was a new strength competition (he never could refuse those, despite, or perhaps because of, having the least stable physiology of the boys).

The whirling and flashing of the boy's light trails couldn't match the jumbled nest of Mojo's mind. His enormous brain pounded, and this logical side told him he might have a concussion. Mojo looked up at his sons with his bleary vision, and what he saw was that he Powerpuff Girls had thwarted him yet again, and his temper flared. He was about to try and stop them again, but paused when he saw the floor.

Scattered all over were small color photographs. Mojo picked one up and tried to make out what it was of, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he realized his spectacles remained pristine, thanks to his new tempering method. The photo showed a sleeping gorilla—his one-time ally Rocko Socko. Mojo flashed back to the day he took his enemies to the zoo to complete his first evil plan ever.

Mojo was snapped out of his nostalgic reverie by a loud boom. He looked up, and saw that Brick had somehow slammed his two brothers into the metal support of his observatory. Mojo grumbled and started gathering the objects that had fallen out of his storage boxes, when he noticed another photograph, surprisingly not of a primate.

In it, the three Powerpuff Girls and himself (back when he was just Jojo) were pictured standing on one of Townsville Zoo's marble bridges. Bubbles was floating and looked like she was giggling, Blossom was looking to the left, apparently fascinated by some strange animal, and even Buttercup was smiling openly. Mojo felt something he usually never felt when he looked at this photo: ambivalence. He looked from the photo and back to his sons, who were now screaming at the top of their lungs, punching more and more holes into his roof.

Memories of moments when the girls had felt less like his mortal enemies and more like his pesky neighbors, and of the time when Mojo hadn't yet obtained his massive intellect and was still under Professor Utonium's care, were as clear as when he was living them. He felt himself growing angry, but also guilty, which made him even more angry.

"No!" His scream echoed with such with such raw, animal fury that the boys froze in the air. Mojo pulled out his Proton Disintegrator. "Lower yourselves now!" He gestured to the floor with the gun.

Boomer dropped without a second thought, and Butch and Brick floated down slowly. "What's your problem, dude?" asked Butch, trying to disguise his nervousness.

Mojo ran up to them, shaking with wrath, barely able to keep his weapon steady. "You three boys are the problem that I am now having to deal with and grapple with!" he yelled. "Your behavior, which is the way you are behaving right now, and the actions you are performing are completely and utterly wrong, inappropriate, indiscreet, unacceptable, and, most of all, disrespectful! Can you not see?

"This is not how any children of mine should be acting, and as my sons you are my children, meaning you ought not to be acting in such a manner. This is not the correct manner for you three to be acting in! The way in which you are carrying yourselves, stirring up trouble, and not respecting my boundaries and what I own, my property, is not the manner in which your actions, the way to decide to behave, and what you think you ought to do should be carried out!" He started pacing around them in circles, his speech not slowing one bit. "Butch, you are twitching and acting with no discretion as if you have mild Tourette's Syndrome, a neurological disorder so-named due to Georges Gille de la Tourette! You must stop showing off, for that is a waste, and stop being so cocky! Boomer, your intelligence is not up to my standards, and that would be one thing, as my standards of intellect are incredibly high as my intelligence is my strong point, but you are not putting any effort into even trying to learn! Thus, you are a complete fool!

"And, Brick, you are by far the most disappointing of this incorrigible lot!" He stopped pacing, and pointed the Proton Disintegrator right at him. "You showed so much promise. Your planning skills were on par with Blossom's planning skills. Blossom! The insufferable leader of those disgusting Powerpuffs! But now you are turning against me, and displaying a lack of empathy for your own kin, your brothers and me!" Tears formed in the corners of Mojo's eyes. "What happened, what caused you in these intervening years in which we did not meet each other, to become like this?"

"Why will you three not behave? Why will you not listen to me? Why will you not respect me, your original creator, the one who created you originally, for I am that one, the creator of you three. I am Mojo Jojo, the one who imbued you with life, and without me, you would not be living now! For I am your inventor, your creator, your father! And. You. Will. Love. Me!" He yelled with enough power to blow their their hair back. Boomer was crying, and hid behind Butch, who was trying very hard not to quiver. Brick scowled.

"You idiot." Brick took a step forward. "We don't owe you anything. We never did. And we'll never 'love' you either. I'm disappointed to see you're just a giant sissy like everyone else I know." With those words, he whacked Boomer in the head. "I'm going to destroy the Powerpuff Girls without you, and that's how it always should have been! Come on guys, let's teach this a lesson, the way we took down all those monsters the scientists made us fight!" The boys' irises glowed their colors. Suddenly, six bright, crackling bolts of plasma shot from their eyes. Mojo's gun exploded and melted on the floor, and he was blasted full force. He screamed in agony and he was in unbearable pain. He saw only white flame. Then, he saw no more.

In a flash, Mojo was gone. Only a large smoking black mark on the floor remained. Brick blinked, and his brothers gasped.

"We m-murdered him!" Butch shook, and he became wall-eyed from shock.

"So what? We've killed plenty of monsters before." Brick levitated once again.

"But this is different!" Boomer covered his eyes, unable to look at what they'd done. "He was our dad!"

"Who cares? Both our fathers were idiots. Anyway, I learned where the girls live! Let's add three superpowered sissies to our kill list, and make sure to torture the pink one extra!" He blasted off.

* * *

The dark void was quiet and almost private, and Mojo may have liked it if he had been able to register that he was even there. He had no sense of time, no idea how long he stayed there. It was as if he were dreaming: time seemed to stretch on forever until he woke up, when it felt like the whole experience took a solitary moment.

The first thing he became aware of after "waking up" was that he was no longer aching, although the reason why he would be escaped him. He pushed himself up from the floor, which was made of some warm, deep crimson stone that he didn't recognize.

Mojo heard a faint buzzing and a bizarre whooshing noise, a bit like a tape being rewound. He looked up and saw that the sky of this place was a projection of random black and white footage that kept shifting every few seconds. Mojo stared, transfixed by the flashing video. It was incredibly detailed, the figures and image shaded in the most alien way, as if they existed in some higher dimension. He though that he could almost see some recurring pattern, if only he could watch a little bit longer...

"I wouldn't keep looking at that if I were you. It's too much for your giant brain to take."

Mojo spun around and clutched at his chest, trying not to hyperventilate. On top of an ornate little stool, in front of a red vanity, sat HIM. He looked amused and relaxed, and turned back to the mirror to play with his hair, which was longer than Mojo remembered. It curled up at the ends, matching HIM's deadly stinger at the end of his tail.

Mojo scowled. HIM had always made him uneasy, and if there was anything Mojo hated, it was being unsure of himself. "HIM, provide an explanation to account for why I am to be located here and not in my observa—" A painful flash of memory. "The Rowdyruff Boys! You brought me back from the dead?"

HIM's eyes narrowed, and his voice went from feminine and velvety to deep and menacing. "Don't thank me. It was my pleasure. It's so rare that I get to play with such forgiving brain matter." He giggled, and Mojo nervously felt himself for defects. "Anyway," HIM continued, in his higher voice once more, "I see that you're having some family issues, hmm?"

Mojo crossed his arms. "My own creations, children, sons do not respect me! They are the ones with the issues!"

HIM let go of his hair. "Jojo was a poor little boy," he said in a sing-songy tone, "he wanted to be loved, but he could only destroy." HIM stood up and put a patronizing claw on Mojo's helmet. "But now he's seeing the idiocy of his dreams, as they're torn asunder by his own little killing machines!" HIM threw his head back and cackled. He stopped laughing and rubbed his eyes with his claws. "I'm so sorry, darling," he said mockingly. "But you're a fool. Nobody sane would ever look up to you," he put extra emphasis on his next few words, almost spitting them, "or ever love you, either. You're an evil villain. Your whole purpose revolves around others despising you with every fiber of their beings!"

Mojo snarled, and stepped back. "Jealousy is a perfectly respectable reason for becoming a supervillain!" he snapped hotly, trying not to let any of his inner turmoil show through.

HIM frowned, a very unfitting expression on him. "But to want to be appreciated for so long..." his voice deepened once more. "Let's see how pathetically soft you really are!" His eyes glowed so bright that Mojo could no longer see pupils, and HIM's teeth grew thin and sharp like knives. Mojo tried to run, but he was frozen in place. Paralyzed. HIM opened his claws and held them over Mojo's sides, and blazing pink electricity shot in the air around him.

HIM was drawing out Mojo's memories, and was letting him feel every moment of it. The demon once again grinned maliciously as Mojo struggled from the stress of reliving his worst failures. From being saved from regulatory animal testing by Professor Utonium, only to be neglected after the creation of the Powerpuff Girls, to the present, where he was shamed by his own sons.

After a few minutes, HIM let down his claws and stopped the sickening spell, and Mojo crumpled to the ground and started shaking. HIM shrugged and walked leant against his vanity, and starting re-applying his lipstick.

"You lasted longer than I thought you would," said HIM, bored. "I suppose I won't be torturing you instead of toying with those girls. Their teen angst would be so much easier to take advantage of! Although, your daddy-issues are always entertaining. I guess it's because your real dad was foolish enough to get murdered by poachers. Too bad he didn't have your brain!" HIM giggled.

Mojo jumped to his feet, and he adjusted his glasses. "What did you say?"

"I said it's too bad your biological father didn't have your intelligence. Maybe then he wouldn't have been turned into bush mea—" HIM never finished his sentence. He was drowned out by the screeching of a supremely livid, disheveled, wild chimp who was having one of the worst days of his life. Mojo still had some martial arts ability even in his old age. He grabbed the stool and threw it with the strength of rage into HIM's stomach. HIM stumbled backwards and fell onto his back, more due to surprise and the poor balance of high-heeled shoes than anything, but Mojo took this opportunity to leap onto HIM's chest and knock the wind out of him.

Mojo spat in HIM's face, ruining obsessively maintained make-up in the process. "HIM, it is one thing to mock me, to make fun of my person and allow me no dignity. I have faced this nearly every waking moment of my life, and even some that were not waking! But, it is another to dare to speak ill of my late father, who had all the power of Napoleon and who inspires me to this very day! Curse you and your stinking claws forever, you damn, dirty, demon!" Mojo punctuated his rant with a left cross, which struck its target with a sickening crack.

HIM involuntarily covered his left eye, and the shadows on his body grew darker, as if he were in hard light. He bared his teeth, which became razor-edged again, but Mojo ignored all this and started another rant. "You insult other people's levels of intelligence, while you yourself are stupid! You can only take the most vile, evil, and destructive option no matter what it is you are doing, and you display no empathy whatsoever, and it cannot even occur to you that others would feel empathy unlike you, and this invariably what always leads to your downfall!

"You are not smart, you are the opposite of smart, you are stupid, an idiot, a malcontent, a fool! You will never become as truly evil as me, that is to say Mojo Jojo, for even as you display a large amount of evil, you are only a supernatural representation of the concept of evil and are thus incapable of having any other facets to yourself that could enhance your evil-ness instead of leading you to take only the most nihilistic and destructive of options, unlike what I can accomplish, as I have a full personality of—mph!" Mojo's rant quickly died when HIM forcibly kissed him. Mojo sputtered and tried to come up with some way to verbally punish HIM, but Mojo's train of thought had become a train wreck.

HIM's eyes turned soft pink instead of green, and the glow enveloped Mojo and lifted into the air and placed him on the ground again. HIM stood back up and smiled, his pupils dilated. "Ah, Mojo darling, your fury is so bittersweet and delicious... my first thought was to eviscerate you for daring to harm me! But then, I realized I always wanted Bubbles to hit me that way. I never could get her to do it..." HIM brought his face to Mojo's eye level, making Mojo flinch. "I said nobody sane could ever love you, but I'm not sane, and come to think of it, neither are our boys. I'm sure I owe you a favor, why don't we strike a deal? I'll show you how to keep them under control, if you keep feeding your negative emotions? What do you say?" he asked, his voice sickly sweet, a strange fusion of his feminine and deeper tones.

Mojo blinked a few times, still flustered. He scowled and hit HIM again, this time with a right cross.

"What was that for?" HIM boomed.

"Kissing somebody without their consent or permission is harassment, molestation, and just plain rude! Now that we are even, yes. I would very much appreciate it if you would be so kind as to fix my problem."

* * *

In the woods outside City Hall, a large divot disturbed the serenity of the lines of trees. Inside that divot lay three very sore Rowdyruff Boys. Brick blinked very slowly and groaned. He carefully got to his feet and looked at the sky. It was night. He and his brothers had ambushed the Powerpuff Girls' house before sunset. He growled quietly.

"Hey, Brick," said Boomer, rubbing his eyes. "Did we win?"

"What do you think? Oh, that's right, you don't think!" Brick yelled, and slapped him. "We were horrible! We got completely wiped out! Boomer, make yourself useful and wake Butch."

Boomer walked over to Butch and punched him in the head. Butch instinctively kicked his leg out, and Boomer flew out of the ditch. "Heh heh, sorry bro," said Butch. "Brick, what's the plan?"

"Shut up! I'm thinking!" Brick just sat for a while. "Wait, where's Boomer? Did you kick him into space or something?"

Butch shrugged, and Brick rolled his eyes. They levitated and saw Boomer standing next to a tree, not moving. They flew over to him.

"Yo, Boomer, snap out of it! Didja see a ghost?" Butch asked. Boomer nodded yes.

"Ghosts aren't real!" yelled Brick. He felt an unnatural chill. He looked around, and spun around when his brothers screamed. Standing behind them was none other than Mojo Jojo, grinning madly.

"I couldn't help but notice that you three are having a teensy bit of trouble," he said sarcastically.

"W-we blew you up!" yelled Butch.

"The correct term is vaporized," said Mojo dryly. "Now, come with me. I know who can fix that fact that you are weakly underpowered, and unable to deal with the accursed Powerpuff Girls." Mojo snapped his fingers, and an eerie neon-pink portal blinked into existence next to him.

"Yeah! A road trip!" yelled Boomer.

"Cool!" said Butch, arms flailing wildly.

Mojo smiled oddly warmly at them, and started walking to the portal, but Brick blocked him.

"Where are we going?" Brick said suspiciously. "And why the heck do you have a black smudge on your mouth?"

Mojo's cheeks reddened and he wiped his mouth with his cape. Then he cleared his throat. "Let me just say, you are going somewhere very hot. You boys will 'study,' and then we can take a commemorative family photo!" Mojo said with far more enthusiasm than he actually felt. As he disappeared into the portal, his sons following behind, he knew he was also entering a new chapter of his existence. A chapter far too exciting for his tastes, and Mojo concluded that he had the worst, most dysfunctional family that ever existed, and ever would exist.


End file.
